Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku‘s regular hangout for people who love video games and the cool sounds they make. Is this GBA tune the least heard official today? Zelda Track ever exist?
Last week A thread popped up on ResetEra suggesting that a particular song is from the Game Boy Advance Port of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Playlist /. long game) is possibly the “most unknown, most opaque piece of music” in Zelda Series history. The 404LinkNotFound era poster might well be correct. I listened to it and I sure had never heard it. What about you?
If you are new to this track, there are very good reasons. As the thread explains, a number of overlapping circumstances make the chances of encountering it infinitely small. For one, it will only be played once you’ve completed a hidden dungeon. Palace of the Four Swords
Complete first A connection to the past. Go head, Clobber Ganon. He deserved it. Then you have to defeat the evil Vaati in the game’s multiplayer mode. Four swords (long game), so you need to figure out how to get cooperation going. Play Four swords requires at least two GBAs (or compatible devices), a connection cable and two Link to the past Cartridges. (Of course, having four players would make the game easier while being more difficult to arrange.) So take a few hours and beat Vaati.
(If multiplayer is out of the question, there are known glitches that can leave you behind until the end Four swords to do what you have to do. Or you could skip it Four swords Overall and use glitches or a specific emulator cheat to get straight to the secret palace. However, these workarounds require internet knowledge and don’t make the newly found song any less obscure.)
Finally back in Link to the pastyou can access the Palace of the Four Swords (complete solution) near the base of the Dark World Pyramid. And it’s not a cake. Higher damage enemies and upgraded versions of previous bosses may make this the toughest challenge in any version of Nintendo’s 1991 classic. But if you’ve got this far, you’re probably ready.
Hit the dungeon to get the credits rolling and you’ll hear that weird new song above … maybe. See, it’s actually only present in the European / PAL GBA version of A connection to the past /. Four swords. Players from the American and Japanese regions will get it easily the thin GBA version of the normal Link to the past Stop music we have heard since 1991:
What the fuck is the story here? Why should an almost three-minute, completely original composition be relegated to what is arguably the darkest variant of a huge first-party GBA release? Well, the European version came out last; Wikipedia suggests December 2, 2002 for the US version, March 14, 2003 for Japan and March 28 for PAL. Maybe those 14 days made all the difference between Japan and Europe. But anyway, come on. It is strange.
As for the new song itself? It’s okay! It sure fits. You can hear some references to existing ones Link to the past
Only in this case is it completely unique to the GBA, so there is no more beautiful version. One wonders how this track could be ported back to the Super Nintendo’s sound chip, where the Link to the past Soundtrack was created. Sounds like a fun little project for any chiptune maestro so inclined. Maybe someone will do it!
This is a wrap for today’s morning music! Credit to Masterlink on VGMusic.com for the first find, Ivaalo on YouTube for what seems to be the first upload a little over a year ago and 404LinkNotFound on ResetEra for draw this attention to wider attention (and Ian for sending me the link!). Just like that, just a little longer Zelda History is brought to light. Cool!
Have you heard this track before? Can you think of other examples of unique content that is strangely sealed off by surprising regional variation? And how are you today? Say hello in the comments! And we’ll see you back here later this week as we slow down the Morning Music train for a while. Cheers.
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